Sweet Asylum
by Honey Jenkins
Summary: In 1900's England, Christine de Chagny is committed following the death of her husband on the eve of their marriage. Witnesses are few, and most decidedly against Christine whose days at the asylum are veiled in mystery by a voice that claims to be bound to the hospital. Christine begins to lose faith in her own sanity as she longs for more than whispered words in the dark.
1. Chapter I

**Chapter I**

Christine tucked her soft, white hands into the folds of her skirt, too overcome to look at them. They slipped into the depths of silk taffeta and chiffon sufficiently covered, she thought, by the embroidered rosebuds and coloured lace. Now there was only a smattering of tiny roses and a bit of green where her porcelain hands once had been. If she never saw them again, she would be happy.

Murderer's hands. That's what the constable had called them when it was remarked how dainty they appeared. She could not be a murderer now, for she had no hands to condemn her. Her limbs were made of many waves of ribbon; pink, yellow, green—all but blue. If she wriggled what once was her smallest finger, the waves danced like those at the seashore she would holiday near with Papa.

A bit of lace caught on the edge of her nail, and she froze, not willing to lose sight of the ocean and the pull of the water as it moved over her bare feet, sinking them further into the sand each time the waves returned. She slid the nail free, just as the image of a tawny haired gentleman smiling shyly at her caused a cold pallor to overtake her features and she released the memory with a shiver.

The constable took her trembling as a sign of guilt. He painted a dark picture of her; a poor, conniving wretch who beguiled a man of fortune into marriage to obtain his wealth. Though she had escaped with no blood on her hands, the guilt was such that she could not have done worse if she'd bathed in the crimson pool that eked out over the gravel walk, and danced upon her husband's body.

The guilt, he affirmed, had driven her to madness. Perhaps she _was_ mad. What woman in her right mind pushed her husband out the window?

Something skittered down the hall, and Christine jumped in her seat. It was only Lily Mason who had dropped her paper boat while being led down the hall to the dormitories. At least the rooms were safe. The nurses would periodically check in throughout the night to be sure all were accounted for, and restful, but it was nothing like the disturbance of the elder Mme de Chagny's expression after Christine had admitted to her humble origins. She couldn't explain why, but from that day on, she feared for her life. There were sinister faces haunting every shadow. Her nerves were such that she no longer slept at night without a candle or two in every corner. Mrs. Vallum grew frightened on her account, and said it was pre-wedding anxiety. The sooner she married, the better.

"Mme de Chagny—ah, Christine," the attendant corrected, cheeks flushed by her error, "The doctor will see you now."

Christine rose in a gentle rustle. She was allowed to keep the gown she'd been wearing when dragged to the inquiry. The ruffles were beginning to wear, especially at the hem. The pink was fading, and there was a tear under the right sleeve that sometimes made her feel as if an icy finger could at any moment jab her tender flesh. These were the marks of only a couple nights of it passing to the laundress at the asylum, yet it remained a far more beautiful gown than anything she'd owned a month prior.

The room was small, but not stifling like the de Chagny's perfumed parlour. Doctor Derek sat in his leather captain's chair, beside the table which carried the lamp Christine had grown fond of. The base held the figure of a cloaked man whose ready fingers hovered over a grand piano. His face was bent over the instrument so that it was obscured from view, but Christine imagined it was serious, and kind. Atop the piano, amidst a plethora of candelabras and stacks of musical compositions there stood the tiniest working clock. As the hours wore on and the sun withdrew from the sky, the lamp turned on at precisely the right hour, steadily growing brighter and brighter to make up for the fading daylight. It was a remarkable lamp, and Christine did not mind sitting in the room where her madness was confirmed so long as she had the curious lamp and the mystifying figure of a musician to study.

She had asked of its origins her first session, never having seen the like in any of the houses full of trophies and splendour that the de Chagnys were obligated to frequent for society, and she too, once the engagement had been published. Dr. Derek smiled at her sudden brightness of expression, and genuine curiosity. "It was a gift from one of my patients. He crafted it over many sleepless nights. I believe he was no stranger to that very scene he depicted. Do you like it?"

"Oh, very much!" Christine reached a finger as if to touch the shoulder of the miniature man, but withdrew it almost instantly, fearing a reprimand for meddling with precious things. "The song he's playing... I wonder what it is."

"Shall I share with you a secret, Christine?"

She'd glanced up in surprise. "Me? I... yes. You trust me?"

Dr. Derek merely smiled, and felt around the side of the round base. Something clicked. The miniature man's hands rose and fell, and the keys on the piano did likewise as a tune chimed sweetly from the remarkable piece. Christine clasped her hands together and watched the man play for nearly a quarter of an hour. She did not recall ever speaking another word, but Dr. Derek was now privy to matters that could only have come from her own lips, and she wondered if the little man at the piano was a device for hypnosis.

Thus was the start of Christine's sessions with Dr. Derek. If he considered her a lunatic, he never said it, not in so many words. However, it was his responsibility to ensure his patients truly belonged there, and so far he had given no indication that Christine did not.

Today, the lamp was still. The light from the window was plentiful as it was still early in the day, and the lamp gave off only the tiniest glow. Christine had not asked to hear the music since it had first been shown her, but the melody refused to leave her mind.

She perched on the edge of her seat, shoulders back and spine straight as a ruler, as Mme de Chagny had taught her. The image of the ruler was clear in her mind. Her palms still stung in recollection of the punishments received when she was caught slouching or sighing. She could not keep her eyes from straying to the lamp, nor her hands from fidgeting.

"Are you nervous, Christine?"

"No, I..." she lowered her head, only to snap to attention as the crack of a ruler sounded through her head. "The music... The music that the man on the lamp plays. What is it?"

"It is a lullaby."

"My father taught me many lullabies and folksongs of our people, and the English when we came here. Of course, there may be some I haven't heard, but it is so unusual..."

"It was written by the man who crafted the lamp. He was highly intelligent. He composed music, as well as sang, wrote, designed, invented, and created dozens of beautiful things. This is only one of his many accomplishments."

"You say, '_was_?'" A shiver escaped Christine, and she hastily regained her posture before it became relaxed.

Rather than answer her question, he asked one of his own. "Have you heard this music somewhere, Christine?"

"Last night," she breathed, barely a whisper. Her eyes misted as she kept them focused on the musician. "A man's voice sang me the lullaby last night."

"You know that is impossible," he gently scolded.

"I know it is, and yet... that is what I heard."

"Perhaps you were dreaming."

"No, no... I... yes, perhaps. No, it did not seem a dream, and yet, it was so very like one..." her eyes flickered back to her folded hands as her mind returned to the present. "I have no wish to speak of it any longer."

"Very well. We may speak of other matters. However, I cannot release you so long as you are experiencing these delusions." There was no mocking in his tone, and Christine was glad of his candour.

She unclasped her hands, and felt them slip into the safety of her gown's folds once again. "_Monsieur_," she said, the forced accent of the de Chagny family's proud heritage catching her off guard even as her voice caught and her eyes filled with tears, "I have nowhere else to go."


	2. Chapter II

**Chapter II**

At night was the worst, when the only reprieve from the unendurable silence was a stray wail, a screech of mischief, or the soft pattering of the nurses' feet. The last she liked best of all. She fancied them as guardian angels robed in white, carrying their lanterns to ensure no harm would befall their dreaming charges. But the wait for each patrol seemed endless, and Christine's every nerve was taut until she once more was settled by the passing of a nurse or assistant, only to be anxious once they'd continued down the hall, and she could no more count the pats and clicks of their shoes.

Most patients slept two to a room; some three or four when there was limited space, or their condition was alleviated by social interaction. Perhaps they were lulled to sleep by the sounds of one another's breathing. Perhaps they shared strange secrets that only their wandering minds understood. Perhaps they fought and squabbled over things more petty than children, and were scolded by the nurse until they acquiesced or were prescribed sleeping pills.

Christine was alone. She was a danger to others, and perhaps even to herself, though that could not be ascertained without further investigation.

The room was very nice, indeed. The de Chagnys may have locked her up as a madwoman, but they did not spare expenses when it came to the quality of her care. The room was not so much a cell as it was a chamber, and she knew for that she should have been immensely grateful—except that its lovely furnishings only reminded her of the grandeur of the estate that had made her miserable and turned her into a murderer.

The woodwork on the little stand by her bed was so like that of the drawer in Raoul's childhood bedroom, and the Persian rug bore eerie similarities to the one that carpeted the room. He had brought her there one stormy afternoon when his mother had been particularly hard on Christine over the issue of "worthless musicians." Christine had borne her remarks for the greater part of the day, and was forced to listen while her father was grouped among those whose professions spoke plainly on their "lack of moral character." Raoul had tried to make her forget the harsh words against her father with sweet whispers and impassioned kisses. It only worked for the time he offered them, and then the taunts and slights came rushing back, but the important thing was that he tried.

Her heart began to ache for the companionship she had known. She would almost exchange Mme de Chagny's cruelty and coldness for the profound loneliness she now felt. But without Raoul in that abominably large house, she would be lonely still.

Christine drew her knees up, holding them tight to her chest as she had since she was a girl; as she would in private, making it the one rebellious action against Mme de Chagny's regulations on posture and propriety. She let her forehead touch her knees and wept.

"_Christine."_

Her head rose, her eyes softened, and she took on the expression of one enraptured. "_Mon ange,"_ she murmured tearfully.

"Why do you cry, my songbird?"

"Because I am frightened and alone."

A distressed sigh filled the room, and Christine's tears nearly started afresh. It felt as if they shared the same pain; she and this spectre of compassion.

"I told you, my child, you are never alone."

"You are not real," she quivered. "Dr. Derek says you are not real."

The voice scoffed, sounding quite real, indeed. "A doctor is a sad excuse of a profession, peddling conversation for pounds. He cannot help you, Christine. Not like I can. And I assure you, I am _quite_ real."

_Raoul had said something like those very words, once. When Christine told the fairy story about the man with the magic shoes, he frowned before asking why she loved it so._

_"Because my father was like that. He had nothing to his name; no money, no title. Just a little girl and an old violin. And with his violin, he made magic. It feels real to me. It _is _real to me."_

_"A fairy story is real to you?" He was about to laugh outright, until he saw how eager she was. Raoul stroked the lace at her shoulder with the back of his knuckle. "As real as I am?"_

_"Oh, no, of course not, dear Raoul!"_

_He was sulking in his boyish way that charmed her. "For unlike a fairy story character, I _am_ real," he murmured in her ear, "Shall I show you?"_

Christine shivered as if a draft had blown in, which was impossible for there were no windows in her room. She asked the voice to tear her mind away, "Did you make the lamp with the man at the piano?"

"Of course, dear child. Who else possesses such ingenuity but me? The doctor does not know it, but if you move the switch on the underside of the bench, the man plays a different tune."

Christine groaned. "No, that is not...! How can you speak to me?"

"I believe it is a process that combines vibrations of the vocal chords, and the movement of one's mouth."

"You are not a ghost, then?"

"I am whatever you have need of, whether that be ghost, angel, comforter, protector, or friend."

Christine sighed, releasing the terrible ache in her heart as he reassured her. She settled under the covers, tucking her hands beneath her head. "Will you sing to me?"

The voice seemed to smile by his tone. "I shall."

While Christine was more than familiar with the qualifications for a remarkable voice, the voice which serenaded her now exceeded anything she had ever experienced. The melody was not only sung, it was _shared_, filling the emptiness of the room and the loneliness of her mind; replacing them with warmth, and comfort, and a peace she had not felt since losing her father.

Though she did not recall the refrain on which she finally drifted, she woke the next morning with a clear and rested mind, and a single rose on the little table.

The next time she was brought to the doctor, she could answer none of his questions as she was too distracted by the thought of the switch on the underside of the piano bench. After the fourth or fifth query was responded to with fragmented thoughts and nervous stutters, Dr. Derek closed his booklet, and set it aside.

"What distresses you, Christine?"

"May I..." she wrung her hands while meeting his gaze with trepidation. "May I touch the lamp?"

"Certainly, if you would like."

She placed a trembling finger under the bench. It met a cool, smooth surface; there was no switch. She let the tension leave her shoulders, and skimmed her finger back, where it felt a small protrusion. She pushed against it. The man at the piano began to play, and it was a new tune.

Dr. Derek was frowning. "How did you know to do that?"

Her eyes were full of terror as she slowly turned from the lamp to the doctor. "I can speak to the dead."


	3. Chapter III

**Chapter III**

She stood before a tall, rectangular window, with individual panes the size of her head separated by lines of polished wood. Raindrops marred the glass, obscuring the view of the outside into smudges of murky colour. Christine put a single finger on the droplet that slowly travelled along her line of sight. It collected a few smaller droplets on its downward path, growing a little larger, a little heavier each time, until it merged into a streaming rivulet and was no longer an individual, but lost in the many streams along the window. Christine looked for another to follow, and found the entire business too exhausting to continue.

She pressed a little harder against the centre of the stream, and in her mind's eye, she saw the glass crack and splinter under the pressure until there was nothing left of the window but an empty row of wooden frames. All from her hand.

Murderer's hands.

She jumped back as if shocked by a cruel, electric current, and suddenly the window was restored.

She should not be near windows. It was in her file. Or she thought it must be, as the attendants were forever hurrying her away from the rooms that had them. The staff did not understand. She _liked_ windows. She never meant to cause harm to the window.

An ear-shattering scream resounded from what was most likely Penelope Wyatt's room, and the sounds of mildly controlled panic in the staff's reaction meant that Christine had a few more minutes to make her quiet escape and return to the seat where she'd left her attendant dozing.

It was curious. Her attendant for the day was always lethargic. It might have been less unsettling if she were given the same attendant each day, but there was no consistency in their watches, rather based on who was nearest and available when she needed an escort to bed or to the garden, or from the waiting hall to the doctor. They varied from the young, and old, male, and female, and of all different dispositions and levels of energy.

Still, her attendants always slept. Not for a remarkably long time, but long enough for Christine to slip away for several undisturbed moments to reflect, or explore, or more frequently, to sing.

At least, she thought she sang. Perhaps it was only in her mind, for it seemed impossible that the levels of noise she reached would not disturb the entire staff, and every patient alike. It could very well have been a dream. She never quite felt like her whole self when she was pulled by that invisible urge, and that voice which came miraculously to the room with windows filled her head and lungs with unendurable beauty. In those moments, she was no longer at the asylum, no longer on earth, but floating somewhere between the tops of the trees and the expanse of blue sky.

More, and more she had these fits of fancy—of madness, it could be said, in which for hours, she could not make heads nor tails of what was reality. Her life had ceased to make sense when she pushed her darling husband out a window, and his entire family and a judge had decided it was on purpose. Perhaps it was not so strange to be losing herself to the passionate refrains of the voice's genius when he begged her to sing. If she could be guilty of such an unthinkable act as murdering her husband, she very likely was a madwoman.

Dr. Derek must believe so. He never made comment on the strange experiences she related, but it was impossible to hope that he might think her only a frightened, confused young woman who knew of no other way to deal with grief than closing herself up to the world and its ugliness. The spirit that haunted the hospital must be right. He was nothing more than a peddler of conversation. Christine was strangely grateful. So long as the doctor thought her mad, she would not be left on the streets, or passed from charity to charity like a hand-me-down doll.

Her attendant was still sleeping. Through the commotion of Penelope's attempted flight, the pudgy woman with the mole on her left hand slept on; snoring, even when the shouting was at its worst.

The moment Christine took her place beside her, she snorted one, terrible snort, shook herself a little, and exclaimed, "Well! That Miss Wyatt can sure cause a stir!" She pat Christine's knee fondly, "You're a good girl, dear."

A good girl. It had been years since someone had called her a good girl. Not since those last winter days when she tucked Papa's scarf around him tighter, and the cough that shook his whole body didn't stop him from rasping out the words, "You are so good to me, darling girl."

Mme de Chagny certainly never called her _good_. No matter how she struggled to be the lady she envisioned, Christine knew that nothing she did would ever be_ good_ enough for her. As tears filled her eyes, she placed a quick peck on the cheek of the old woman.

"Thank you," she murmured.

"I don't believe it," the woman said, smiling through crinkled eyes. "It must have been an accident, yes? Such a sweet little thing like yourself. It _had_ to be an accident."

Christine swallowed, and leaned her head against the wall without reply. The _accident_ still gave her nightmares.

She had so many nightmares about the incident in fact, that she could no longer be sure of which was closest to reality, or if the entire, sad truth was lost to her memory forever.

There was one dream in which he merely lost his footing. He was twirling her; around and around in a swirl of silks and laughter until Christine was dizzy and her slipper fell off. She begged him to stop. He set her down and stumbled backwards. She tried to catch him, pull him back before he smashed through the window and fell to his death, but her desperate grabbing only seemed like violent savagery to the victim's brother who watched from below.

In another version, it was Mme de Chagny who saw the accident, and the groundskeeper who Christine once thought so kind that were her most ardent accusers. In variations, Raoul was unsteady from drinking, in one he transformed into a hawk and flew out the broken window, only to be found later on the ground in human form.

And the most vivid of them all, the one that haunted her the most, began with a couple who were blissfully happy with the world, and each other, until the horrible accident. It began with a kiss. It was the kind of kiss that thrilled Christine to her toes, and made her giddy, and ache all at once. There was nothing in the world but the lavishing of Raoul's affection upon her skin that was peppered with gooseflesh.

But something changed. Whether it was the steady aggression of his ministrations, or the wavering solidity of Christine's reciprocation of his passion, she couldn't tell. Not the six times she'd dreamed of it, nor the times it lapped at her memories as if to accuse her of being the real story. Either way, she had pushed him. Forcefully. Deliberately. It didn't matter that she hadn't meant to be the death of him. In the end, what mattered the most was how she felt, and she did not feel sorry. Regret... perhaps. But not remorse. That is what haunted her; kept her awake at night, besides her inability to decide which version was real. It was the thought that she had killed him, and she was starting to feel glad.

It was not so in her dreams, however. In each, the contrast between beginning and end was horrific. At the start, Christine believed that here was the first night of a fairy tale existence, and every unfulfilled wish for her humble life was soon to come about. But each ended the same; with splinters of glass, and a body on the gravel. His mother shaking Christine until her teeth rattled and she was woozy. Blood on the drive. An angry constable.

In every dream, Raoul was still dead. And regardless of the truth, everyone in her idyllic world believed Christine had murdered him.


	4. Chapter IV

**Chapter IV**

It was a particularly harrowing dream that she awoke from, all covered in perspiration, and her face wet with tears. She took a moment to recover, to remember what she'd dreamed, and as the images and emotions came flooding back she began to cry with renewed vigour.

And then the voice; a whisper of a song, like a comforting touch from her father swept over her mind and settled her heart.

It was not enough. Tonight, it was not enough. Music had a profound effect on her. It soothed, and assured, and made peace with her fate, but tonight it left an ache; an emptiness. She needed human contact; a reminder that she was human, that she was _real_, and all the shades and spirits that infiltrated her subconscious could not harm her. She needed an encompassing embrace.

But she was alone. Alone except for the voice.

He was not speaking to her at present, but she knew she need only call out to him, and he would answer. He never failed her. She had no special title, no magic spell to conjure. She merely spoke into the darkness, and it answered. "If you are not of this world... can you speak to others who have passed on? Can you speak to... to my father?"

She was about to ask after Raoul. The words had almost passed her lips before she retracted. But at the last moment she faltered. Perhaps it was best not to know... to know what _he_ thought of her. If he knew the truth, Christine was not ready to face it. She would rather her father be by her side again, as the time before Raoul took pity on a poor chorus girl, struggling to make ends meet the only respectable way she knew how.

The voice was there, as she knew he would be. No draft to precede him, no ominous dimming of the lights, but nonetheless, he was there. "I am afraid that is not possible, my child."

"You call me 'my child.' Are you a very old spirit?"

"Not so very old. I will not call you child anymore if you wish it."

"Why are you...?" Christine drew in a breath, and made her tone gentler. "I don't mean to be rude, but, why...?"

"Why am I here, and not in heaven or hell?" Christine nodded, childlike in her curiosity. "Perhaps to help you at such a time as this," he answered.

"_Can_ you help me?"

"If you let me, _elskan_."

She wrapped her arms around her torso, willing her body to warm at the sound of a word that evoked old memories. Her father called her _elskan_; the name for "darling" from the Old Norse. Passed down by word of mouth through a dark fairy tale, he would recount the story as he tucked her in and bade her say her prayers each night.

"I wish I could touch you."

"I am bound to this place. No one can touch me but one also bound. I think you would not wish to always be here."

"I will never leave, so long as you stay with me!" she cried.

"You belong to the world of the living. You must learn to laugh, and sing again. I will help you accomplish this, but you should not desire to stay."

"But I do! I have nowhere else to go!" her voice broke at the pain of admitting to yet another person that she was utterly helpless, "I am so lonely... so very lonely, and the only ones here who do not believe me a murderer are either attendants, or too mad to be friends with anyone outside their wretched minds! Where would I go? What would I do if I could not rest here?"

"Hush, now. We will speak tomorrow."

In desperation, not fully realising how she sounded, Christine exclaimed, "I may not be here, tomorrow! If I cannot have your promise to stay with me, I cannot live!"

"I will be with you as long as you have need," he soothed. "Shall I sing to you?"

She nodded, then unsure if ghosts could see in the dark, she verbalised her assent. "But not the ones you always sing. Papa's lullaby, please."

"I cannot commune with others who have passed on, Christine."

"Then I shall teach you."

Christine hummed a sweet folksong, intended to soothe little children who insisted on staying up past their bedtimes. Christine gave a rough rendition, not recalling the words, but aching for the melody to be sung to her again. The voice refined the tune, and created a new song with his own words.

She became light again, unburdening herself through the lullaby.

It might have been a dream, but she thought she felt the gentle press of a kiss on her forehead before falling asleep.

The next morning dawned as it usually did—secretly, and without Christine's knowledge. She wondered if the ghost might make her a lamp to replicate the sun's movement across the sky, as he'd made before his death. She did so hate not knowing the time of day but for the nurses' regularities. She was always at the mercy of another. In this, her life had not changed since her father's death.

Was she doomed to lose everyone she cared for? First her father—her everything—and then Raoul, her one comfort after his passing. Her only friend now was a spirit that haunted an asylum. She had no idea what mental instabilities had plagued him while living. She hardly cared. Now he was to leave her, too. The moment she was well, he would leave her to forge another life of loneliness on her own.

Unless she never became well. But the ghost would know. He would see through her games if she pretended to be worse than she was. The ghost knew of her conversations with Dr. Derek. She had to be more clever than that.

He was bound to the hospital. She wished to be, too—_needed_ to be, lest she lose yet another she cared for.

It was clear to her what she must do. She must die as well, and join the ghost forever.


	5. Chapter V

**Chapter V**

Blood was a strange substance.

It was much thinner than one might expect. After seeing so much of it pooling in one place under the body of her husband the effect of a steady stream trickling down her face did not give the same sensation of horror she might have thought. It was not sticky when it was so freshly spilled, and had no odour that she could immediately determine. If she had not been steadily pounding her head against the wall she might have thought the curious moisture to be tears. She was growing used to the throbbing in her head, like the echo of her heartbeat that she wanted to silence.

She wondered what the end would bring. Would she be reunited in heaven with her beloved father, or made to spend a time of purgatory, haunting the asylum with her ghost? Either way, she would be happy. So long as she was not alone. She was so tired of being alone...

The _thump thump_ of her head was growing weaker as she lacked the strength to continue as violently as she'd begun. As her vision blurred, the voice called to her. He was angry. More than angry, he was furious... desperate? And... sad? Why should he be sad? She was doing this to be with him.

He begged her to stop. She raised her eyes and was forced to blink hard when blood dripped into one. "Spirit... I am coming to you."

"Not this way, Christine, not like this!"

"You cannot stop me," she smiled. "You cannot touch me, and so you cannot stop me from doing this." Yet even in that moment she knew that if he could but touch her, she would gladly rebuff death for just a bit longer. If only this dreadful loneliness would abate for a spell.

He continued to plead, to bargain, to scold, and even threaten. It was all lost on the girl who was listening to a faint, imagined humming in the backdrop of it all. There was a commotion outside the door that interrupted the humming. She'd been allowed a lock so long as it remained unbolted during the night when the nurses did their check-ins. It was locked, now. She was safe from their help. She could die here without hindrance. A fresh wave of dizziness overtook her, and she stumbled back. A clicking noise, like a pick working at the lock, or no... a key could be heard. Of course; the doctor would have the key. He and two nurses burst through the door, none too soon, as Christine's feet buckled under her and she fell into the ready arms of her doctor.

She stared up at him. The blood now trickled down the side of her head, keeping clear of her eyes. Some of it was drying, she thought, on her cheeks. She didn't have the strength to reach up and touch it to see. Dr. Derek demanded dressing materials from the nurse who scurried off to obey. There was something she did not like about his face. He was perfectly ordinary in every way; no outstanding birthmarks, or scars, or blemishes on his clean shaven face. His dark hair was always tidily combed back into a respectable part. But Christine had the unshakable feeling that it was all a lie. That his flesh was only a mask to hide his true character. She did not consider her present state of half-consciousness to be indication that she was not thinking reasonably. No. She was certain his features lied to her.

He was speaking to her, now. In a moment of terror, she wondered if he'd frightened away the voice; if his being in her room meant that she was tainted forever, and never again would she hear the lullaby. She cried out to him in apology. The doctor continued to ask after her as a droning in one ear while the voice soothed and assured in the other. For one, terrifying moment, they were as one, and Christine could not separate the two voices in her mind.

She fell into darkness, and dreamed.

Her feet skimmed the bank of a river that swirled with mist. It was dark. So dark, that she wondered if she was not underground. Across the river, a man cloaked all in black stood in a narrow boat that silently glided across the water towards her. When it came to the shore, the boat did not bounce back from the impact, but instead faded out, while the man continued standing; this time in front of Christine on the bank. His head was nothing but a dark shadow; a silhouette beneath a top hat.

She opened her mouth to ask what he wanted, but he took her by the wrists in such a grip that she felt the wind knocked out of her. The man in black forced her hand on his shoulder and kept the other tight in his grasp. He began a waltz. Music of her past, every lullaby and folksong seemed to play together, and something altogether new; the song from the man at the piano on the lamp in the doctor's sitting room.

The vision was fading. She wished to stay longer, but the dark figure was letting her go, and the mists on the river were now swirling about her feet, carrying her away. She held out her arms and cried.

The mysterious shadow was gone.

She could not have been long unconscious, since Dr. Derek still held her, and the nurse had not returned with anything to tend her wounds with.

"Why have you done this, Christine?" His voice was so weak. So human and so weak compared to her ghost.

She gazed listlessly at him. This was not a time she was willing to answer his questions.

"Have you been treated cruelly?" It was the sort of thing he had to ask for the sake of his patient and her recovery. So why did he sound truly concerned?

She nodded faintly.

"Who, Christine?" The nurse knelt by him with a tray of medicines, towels, and bandages. He never took his eyes from Christine's as he tenderly dabbed at the drying blood. "Who has been so cruel to drive you to this?"

There was one man who could drive her to do anything; drive her to murder, and suicide, and a host of other unthinkable crimes against God and humanity. The man who loved her with a passion, only to leave her all alone before they were truly made one.

"Raoul," she uttered hoarsely, and fell into darkness once more.


	6. Chapter VI

**Chapter VI**

She should have been in a straight jacket and straps, she heard it stated while her body floated down several hallways. She could not see how she was not immediately restrained. They brought her to the room for raving lunatics; the ones who must be kept under watch for trying to harm themselves or others. The chair was set, the jacket provided, yet somehow she remained groggily sitting—no, not quite sitting, but she was leaning against a man's chest while she stared at the terrible chair across from them. He was methodically cleansing her head and face of the blood that had dried on it as he helped her remain upright. For a man of such slender proportions, he was doing very well for supporting her.

It must have been the doctor. No one else would have had access to the chamber, and the ability to send away all the nurses and assistants.

But why would he do so?

The antiseptic stung as he applied it with a plume of soft cotton, yet upon her low hiss of breath she felt soothing fingers at her neck, rubbing and coaxing as the doctor murmured in her ear.

She closed her eyes and for a moment allowed herself to believe that instead it was the voice who held her, who mended all wounds; both the self-inflicted and those that came from her sorry circumstance.

"Will it ever go away?" she asked, not truly expecting an answer. Her thoughts were muddled, a blur of what had come before and the still lingering desire to depart from the strangeness of this world.

The doctor paused in his ministrations. "Of what do you refer, Christine? Your wounds will heal with time, as all do."

Her head throbbed, a dull beating that she supposed matched that of her heart, and she idly wondered if the only way for it to desist was if her pulse ceased also. Were they forever to be entwined?

Her eyes fluttered open and she took the cool hand so intent on tending and binding the abrasion that would have joined her with her only friend and brought it to her chest.

But before she could make him understand, a wave of dizziness overcame her and his confusion gave way to alarm before he caught her as she slumped in his arms.

She awoke some time later, the walls of her room familiar, if perhaps not altogether comforting. Her arms remained unbound, and as she carefully shifted her legs, those too moved freely and without resistance.

It felt strange to be alone again, and for a moment she dearly wished she had remained conscience so at least she could have experienced the comfort of the doctor's presence for a little longer.

"_Mon ange_?"

Her voice cracked unbecomingly, and she realised how thirsty she was. She tried again, this time her voice straining slightly as she implored her companion to return to her.

The voice, when he came again, was furious.

_"Why, Christine?! Why?!"_

She could not help but smile, her gratitude that he had come outweighing the trepidation she felt at his obvious displeasure. "I wanted to be with you!"

He was silent for a long while, and whatever relief she had found at his presence began to fade.

"Angel?"

"Did he hurt you?"

She tried to sift through her still addled thoughts to know whom he might refer, but the soreness of her head made her feel slow and listless. "Raoul?"

"No, the doctor."

Her brow furrowed. "No, he has only patched me up. But he cannot heal me as you can!"

"What I give you is only sound. An illusion."

She shook her head furtively, wincing even as it protested the action. "No, it is everything!"

He released a very great sigh, one that echoed in her ears and made tears spring unbidden to her eyes. "One thing I could not do is save you from your own stupidity. You cannot join me by dying."

Her lip trembled and the near desperation to be with him, a true living being that could know and love her, returned tenfold. "Then how can I be with you?"

"It is not for you to seek to join me. You must have patience and wait for me to welcome you. For you to do yourself harm shows a lack of faith in me, can you not see that, Christine?"

She nodded hesitantly, not at all certain that she did see. But she could not bear the disappointment in his tone, and she feared that should she make such an attempt again he would spurn her in the hereafter.

"Do you promise? Do you promise not to harm yourself again?"

She nibbled her lip, but knew she could deny him nothing. "I promise."

The doctor spoke to her every day for the subsequent sennight. Sometimes he would tend to her bandages, and a few times upon seeing her haggard appearance would offer to allow her to rest upon the sofa in his office instead of answer his multitude of questions.

But one afternoon when her wounds were just beginning to heal and it took great amounts of discipline to keep her fingers from slipping beneath the carefully secured gauze to worry at the newly mended flesh, Dr. Derek resumed his staid posture and began a fresh enquiry.

"How did you come to be here?"

She reminded herself of his promise that the soothing unguent he had applied would calm the wretched itching, even as she forced her thoughts to focus on his question, although they strayed to a time much better forgotten. "Mme de Chagny... she wanted me hanged, but the judge pronounced me unwell. I believe he took pity on me."

His eyes lit up, as if some part of her stunted history confirmed one of his theories. "Then you are not truly as ill as you seem."

Christine remembered that in order to stay with her ghost, she _had_ to be seen as mad. As her mind groped for ways to accomplish this, she babbled about her in-laws.

"The de Chagnys are a very old aristocratic family from Paris. They fled the city and established themselves here during the Revolution."

"Yes, there are few who do not know their story." He idly toyed with a sleek fountain pen, and she wondered what the glossy surface would feel like between her fingers as she scribbled notes and thoughts as she pleased. "And what of your family? Were they as well-bred as your marriage suggests?"

"I am a Swedish girl. My father was a violinist who set up a shop here. He made them. Repaired them. Sold little compositions that were popular with the village children at home. I was not good enough for the blue blooded household of Mme de Chagny and her son."

He made more scribbles on the crisp parchments, and no matter how she directed her gaze, she could not see what could have been of such importance about her heritage.

"They were cruel to you?"

"Not Raoul. Never Raoul. At least... he didn't mean to be."

She plucked at a stray thread of her skirt, wishing they would entrust her with the supplies necessary to keep her garments tidy. But even the tiny filigree scissors that would snip threads so easily were deemed too hazardous for her person, despite her promise to her ghost and the subsequent vow the doctor had coaxed from her. She was afforded the plain garments given to the institution by the charitable for the desperate and deranged, but Christine clung to her fine gown nonetheless, unwilling to completely let go of her happier memories associated with it.

And despite her desire for darned stockings and skirts that did not fray, she was a lunatic, and Dr. Derek had to be convinced. The ghost did not scold her for speaking to the doctor of their conversations or musical lessons, and she determined that was her most likely way of convincing him she was never to leave the hospital. For a ghost to believe in himself was not so strange, but for her to press the matter with Dr. Derek, he _must_ question her sanity.

Except, he was not. It seemed in the wake of her attempt upon her own life Dr. Derek was determined to change tactics. He must have believed that his insistence that she spoke of the impossible had fuelled her destructive actions, and was willing to play along for her safety.

At first he said she had invented him as an imaginary friend; a comforter for the dark times. Isn't that what he'd called himself? A friend? The fact that he said he would be to her whatever she needed spoke to her imagination.

The switch on the lamp was a lucky guess. Or perhaps she found a booklet belonging to his patient and had fallen asleep reading it; dreamed of what she'd read and thought it was a ghost's visitation. Patients were always hiding personal things in odd places in the hospital. It would be no great surprise if his old patient had patents and instructions hidden throughout various nooks.

When she insisted on the trueness of his ghostly presence, Dr. Derek grew thoughtful. He pressed that science could not explain everything.

"Why won't you believe me?" She wrung her hands together in aggravation.

"I will answer you with another question. Why do you wish me to believe you are more ill than I know you to be?"

Christine tortured her lower lip with her teeth. In an effort to take on the role of the mentally disturbed, she was slowly letting go of all the lessons drilled into her by the incorrigible Mme de Chagny. She did not coif her hair. She did not sit straight as a ruler. Sometimes, she purposefully forgot to cross her ankles.

When she continued her silent treatment, Dr. Derek tried again. "Why did you try to kill yourself?"

"Because I am mad!"

"A mad woman does not confess to her madness. So you have readily admitted to your sanity."

"Please..." she began with a whimper, "I can't... I do not want to be out on the streets."

"I am not in the habit of throwing my patients out on the street the moment they are no longer in need of my doctoring. Once you are well, I will set you up in some respectable employ where you will be comfortable, and cared for. There is no need to distress yourself over that."

"It is not... You don't understand!"

"Christine."

The firm, commanding way he said her name forced her head up.

"If you are trying to play the mad woman, I can easily treat you as one. We have treatments for the much more... progressed agents of insanity. There is psychosurgery, or electroconvulsive therapy, if the drilling of your skull does not suit you. What do you think? Shall I call the specialists?"

Christine's lip trembled.

"You will have to do better if you want me to believe you mad, Christine. Ah. Do not fret. I have it all here that you are not to be released. I wouldn't dream of letting you go until you were willing. I have done a great deal for you." He shook his head downward at the notes he'd made with his sleek, black pen."Perhaps you do not realise..."

"Realise...?" she echoed.

"I have not followed protocol in your case. For your sake, I have done as you desired and put down your symptoms as you made them appear, rather than the truth of the matter. I did not have you bound, and tended to you myself when I should have had the nurses see to you."

"What are you saying? That I am... I am to be beholden to you?"

"No, Christine!" She was bewildered by his distress that she should so badly misunderstand."I do not want you to feel you owe me! I merely... I want to help you."

"You are a doctor," she said dumbly.

"Yes, but I wish to help you as _more_... No," he broke off suddenly. "We have spoken enough. You must return to your chamber, and I to my studies."

* * *

**Author's Note:** This will be the last update from the Americas for some time! Four to five weeks, in fact! I should have enough chapters (I hope) written and kept in limbo by my departure date so that I can keep to my regular updates, even from the UK, but I apologise in advance for any hiccups the story might experience. I've no idea what to expect as far as my technology whilst on holiday goes!

Ah, yes! I have gone back and replaced the first five chapters with edited versions of the originals! No major changes plot-wise. I just tweaked some errors. :)

Eeeep! In four days, I'll be in Scotland!


	7. Chapter VII

**Chapter VII**

For the weeks that followed Christine's physical recovery, there was a shift, and not just in the skies which turned even more inconsistent than English weather was already wont to do. Christine felt herself drifting. The air was muggy and the rain brought a strange dampness to the warm atmosphere. She considered the odd weather to have partial sway over her developing moods, but it was felt also in the manner of Dr. Derek towards her, and the presence—or lack thereof—of her ghost.

It was not that he abandoned her; indeed, he still was at the ready whenever she called him; but he was not the same. He did not hold the same power that he once did. He was becoming... distant. Not that she could ever hold a spirit _close_, but his voice no longer filled her as it once did; no longer caressed, and seduced her ears, and soothed her tears away. It was as if his own words had prophesied his departure. He could only create sound. And if sound was not real, then what was? The doctor could touch; could heal her with his hands. And as the weeks passed, and she called on her ghost less and less, she tried to determine if physical healing _was_ perhaps the answer to her troubles. And perhaps if he was fond of her as she suspected...

She knew the dangerous line she walked. It was incomprehensible for an esteemed doctor of such an establishment to court the possibility of involvement with a patient. Their lives would both be devastated if it became known. Hers, perhaps, even forfeit. But she could not deny the gentle touches he administered whenever he checked her wound—though the nurses tended to it regularly, it never seemed enough to trust them—or found some other excuse for the meeting of his hand to her head, or at her pulse. And there was more. The sessions that once were carefully conducted with the utmost decorum became akin to romantic trysts. Not that he was overtly physical with her, or even so much as put a hand on her that could not be medically justified, but they reminded her of those first tentative weeks of her courtship with Raoul. How careful he was; how tender.

That was not how it was with her ghost. Her ghost was like their latter days together, before the wedding. When Mme de Chagny was insisting their love was not real, it could not be real, but it _felt _more real than anything she had known before. Though they had not consummated their love, and had it been known, in the eyes of so many, they were not husband and wife, their love was still real to her. That was her ghost. He even said of himself that he was an illusion, and yet...

Always she felt the pull from both sides. When she turned to one, the other seemed farther away. They spoke civilly of one another, excepting a few of the harsher insults from the voice, but to Christine at least, they were the bitterest of rivals, warring over her mind in a relentless tug-of-war.

The doctor she could never have; could not even trust, so far as she knew him, which was precious little. The voice had vowed to stay with her as long as she had need, but she feared to cling to such a promise would be the same as succumbing to madness.

She _was_ mad. Mad to be in a situation where she felt compelled to choose between a ghost she longed to touch but could not, and a doctor who did, but should not have touched her.

There was another woman now in the office, and Christine did not like it.

The woman took up a place on the curious lamp. Just behind the piano, angled on the curve of the base so that only her profile was visible, a slender, white arm fell out of a full, lacy sleeve to rest on top of the piano. She was not there before, Christine was sure of it, but Dr. Derek insisted that she was.

"No, I... I know that lamp. There was never a woman on the lamp. I've memorised it."

"Are you sleeping well at night, Christine? Sleep can help consolidate your memories..."

"It is not sleep! That woman wasn't there!" She began to sob, "She... looks like me."

"It is not you. That lamp has been there since before the death of my patient." He sighed deeply. "Christine, what is wrong? You are trembling. Shall I bring you another shawl?"

"No, I'm not cold. It isn't the cold."

"Are you afraid?"

She shivered again, though shaking her head as well, in refusal to accept it.

"I fear you will always be afraid because you don't want to be well."

"Of course I do!"

"Christine..."

"If I was well..."

"Yes?" he prompted gently.

"If I was well, would you... I don't want to be alone!"

"The voice you speak to. He's promised to stay with you?"

"Yes."

"Why do you not lean on something real?"

"Because life is only a vapour. You... are only real until you are dead. The ghost is already dead. He cannot leave me."

"Have many people left you?"

"My father, Mrs. Valerius, Raoul..."

"Did Raoul leave you?"

"He didn't mean to."

"But he was cruel to you. You said so yourself."

"No! I didn't mean it. That is... He was cruel to bring me to his beautiful home, and tell his mother we were married so she would let me live there, to know what it was like before it all turned to ashes. He was cruel to be so kind and understanding when we were married and I was not ready to... to give him that. To be _truly_ married. And he was cruel for frightening me! For slipping, and... and for leaving me!"

"Then his death is on his own head, you believe. It was his own fault. He slipped."

"I do not know that."

"What do you know? You are the only one who can say, Christine. And I think you are tortured because you know that he was cruel, you know that he hurt you, and in the end, you are _glad_ you pushed him out the window to his death!"

The air seemed cloying, and oppressive. "No!" she sobbed, "That's impossible...!"

"Is it!? Christine..." suddenly, to Christine's great shock, he was kneeling at her feet, hands clasping hers. "I will not condemn you! I will not send you away! I only want to help you get well. You may stay here for the rest of your days, my beautiful, sweet Christine, if that is what you wish. But you _must_ tell me the truth! What happened to Raoul de Changy?"

She had begun to gasp in large, heaving gulps. Why was the air so thick? Why was the room so warm? "He... he said it was time! He said... he was right! We'd been married over a week; what husband would not expect...? What husband would not come to claim what was theirs? He frightened me!"

"Yes, he frightened you. Because he was cruel! Because he would have taken you with or without your consent."

"No! I..."

"Christine, _what did you do?_"

"I killed him!" she wailed, "I killed Raoul, and I am not sorry!"


	8. Chapter VIII

**Chapter VIII**

At times, Christine wondered if she spent more time dreaming than she did living. After her painful confession that she retched forth like a disagreeable dinner, she had sobbed long and hard in Dr. Derek's office until hysterics overtook her and he comforted her the only way he could—with opiates. At least, she surmised that was the method of choice, given her lack of memories immediately following her breakdown. The next she knew, she was waking up in her bed and the nurse had come in to lay out her plain clothes.

Clothes. Christine scoffed inwardly at the word. Or she thought she had done so inwardly, but the nurse glanced her way. They were not clothes in the strictest sense. More like sacks of chicken feed that had been crudely formed into underthings, and a shapeless piece of material they had the audacity to call a _dress_.

She shocked herself with her own ungracious thoughts. Since when had she grown so discontent with warm clothes, a place to lay her head at night besides the stables of strangers, and enough food to fill her belly each day? Her life with her father seemed as if it belonged to another. Her ghost was more real than those memories at times.

"Where is my gown?" she asked sharply.

The nurse hemmed, tugging at the sleeves of the simple frock, as if straightening it would make any difference. "Doctor's orders were to throw it out."

"How did I come to be here?"

"You grew frantic in your last session, and the doctor had to put you to sleep for a while. Are you well rested?"

"I want my gown!" Again, she was shocked by how petulant she sounded, but she was even more distraught at the idea that her gown had been destroyed. "Where is my gown?"

"I don't... I don't know. I'll be sure to ask the doctor on your behalf!"

She scurried away, but it was only moments before another nurse returned; this time with Dr. Derek in tow.

"What's this about a gown?" he questioned as she glared at him unflinchingly.

"I want my gown back."

"That gown symbolises everything unhealthy you are clinging to. Do you want me to help you get well, or not?"

"Not if I can't keep my gown!" she insisted with an angry pout.

He looked at her a moment as if to argue, sighed instead, and dismissed the nurse. He took a seat at the end of her bed. She squared her shoulders and looked away.

"Why is the gown so important to you?"

"The ribbons..." when she traced the outlines of leaves on her covers instead of continuing, he prompted her. "Yes?"

"The ribbons were like... what Papa used to say he would buy me if he was rich. A gown with silk ribbons, and ruffles, and bows. If he looks down and sees me in these plain clothes, he'll know something is wrong."

"If I bring you a new gown with ribbons, will you be happy?"

"It would not be from Raoul if you bought it," she said forlornly.

The doctor kept his gaze fixed directly upon her until she met his eyes, and he finally said, "Precisely."

Christine worried the inside of her bottom lip.

"Christine?"

"I don't hear him," she murmured, as she wrung the covers between her hands.

"What do you mean? Hear who?"

"My ghost... the voice. When you're here, he is not. Sometimes I hear him when the nurses tend to me, or Lily shows me her paper things, and he hums little tunes for the paper birds, and the painted ladies that hold hands, but never with you. Only once... when I was dying. He was angry with me. I don't think the ghost likes you."

The doctor passed a hand over his chin thoughtfully. He took his time before a reply was made. "We would not be friends, the ghost and I."

"Why not?"

"Because we have separate motives. I wish to see you well and thriving in the world. He wants to keep you a prisoner to your mind and have you all to himself. I am jealous of the voice because he is able to console you in a way I never could, and in turn, he is jealous of me because I can touch you. Though I am limited to stolen moments, he would give himself away were he to touch you at all."

Christine tilted her head in concern. "But he cannot touch me."

"You are sure of that? Perhaps not as you perceive it..."

He smiled and shook his head at her befuddled expression.

"We will talk on this another time. For now, I will commission a dress for you."

The bed made no sound as he rose from it. Christine thought it must be her heart that made her so heavy whenever she pulled herself from the bed and it made such protestations against her movements. Or perhaps he was too thin to worry the wire mattress. Before he reached the door, she stopped him with a word.

"Wait."

He turned expectantly.

"Pink?" she asked in the softest of whispers. "Might the gown be pink?"

Dr. Derek smiled, and closed the door behind him.

She wasted no time in beckoning the ghost. "Why won't you speak to me when he is here?" she insisted.

"You heard the pill peddler," he replied with some regret. "We are not the greatest of friends."

"Must I choose between you?" she sighed.

The prolonged silence that followed was unbearable. Christine only endured it for a short lapse, and then she began to cry. "Angel!"

"What am I, Christine?"

"You... you are my ghost. A spirit."

"That is what you wish me to be to you? A ghost... a voice. Not a man, not a friend. A supernatural being that will sing you to sleep, and whisper in your ear, but do no more."

"I want you to hold me."

"You do not. If I was a man, you would not allow me to stay with you. Would you allow the doctor to caress your hair and hold you as you slept?"

"No! Of course not! He... he is not like you!"

"Indeed, he is a man of flesh and blood. That is why you cling to me. You want me to stay with you because I cannot touch you. You complain that I cannot, but it is exactly as you'd wish. Christine... I do not come to you when the doctor is near, because this is a choice you must make. You must decide if you want an illusion or a man. And a man may have hopes of becoming your lover."

She immediately balked. "There is no question of that! He only wants to help me!"

"Don't be so naive. You know how many rules of protocol he's broken to care for you."

Christine shook her head at the notion, but was forced to accept that there was truth to the ghost's words. "If I refuse him..." she faltered, "If I choose you, he might hurt me."

"I would not let him hurt you. Do you trust me?"

"Yes," she said with conviction.

"Then make your choice."


	9. Chapter IX

**Chapter IX**

It was so clear. She didn't know how she could have been blind to it before, but Dr. Derek was certainly interested in her as far more than a patient. He had all but confessed to his intentions during their sessions; it was in the method of comfort he extended to her during outbursts of emotional distress, or by a touch that lingered longer than it should have. She felt utterly foolish that she had dismissed it as rare kindness before. She did not _think _he would take advantage of her in pressing his suit, were she to put an end to his special attention, but then she had never suspected him of ulterior motives towards her in the first place.

What did she know of men and their motives? Nothing, she was fast learning. All she discovered of the doctor's intentions she had learned from a mysterious voice.

He had told her to make her choice. She tried.

She tried to imagine her life without the ghost. Already he was fading, little by little each day. The medicines prescribed after her self-inflicted injury often made her too sleepy to call out to him. He still sang for her, and she for him, but it lacked the impassioned ecstasy it once held for her, and she wondered if she still needed it as she did before.

She tried to imagine her life without the doctor's attentions. If he had not taken a special interest in her, would she have been saved from her own self-destruction in time? She could not know how he was alerted to her violent attempt, but it was that day when he showed how truly caring and attentive he could be. It was that day the idea of _more_ needled its way into her mind with a relentless subtlety that became clearer now.

She was interrupted by her reverie with an insistent tug at her consciousness that she should be elsewhere. It was akin to the feeling of lost self awareness that she experienced when singing with her angel. Without knowing what she was about, she began to walk, following the invisible pull. Her hands brushed hanging vines that felt cool on her fingertips as she passed through a verdant archway which seemed part of an utopia rather than the asylum she knew. Perhaps there were gardens here she had not been permitted to explore. At the end of the walk there was a door. It was blue; the colour blue of secret wishes, and fairy's wings, and unspoken truths. The sort of blue that was too beautiful to be something of the physical world. The blue that belonged to the sky.

Christine clasped the knob that felt like something she knew, but couldn't place, and turned it ever so slowly. Suddenly frightened, like when a strong wave undulated beneath her, threatening to drag her into the depths just before her father took her hand and dragged her away, she let air flood back into her lungs and pushed the door open.

She was in the room her doctor used for conversations. The pianist on the lamp was playing his secret song, and Christine realised it was the music that had beckoned her here. But where was the doctor?

Then she saw him, and for an instant it was as if the secret song was of his doing; as if it was his _own_ call to her, and not the voice's beckoning at all. But that was absurd. The ghost had written the music. The ghost had built the lamp. The ghost had done these things when he was a man; alive, and capable of being touched—of holding and caressing another.

Perhaps the ghost thought she would not have accepted him when he was alive. Perhaps he was in agony, trapped between worlds, and could not believe Christine would choose a living man.

Perhaps to show him otherwise, she would have to show him she was fully able and willing to choose a living man.

Her doctor tried to compose himself at the window. He maintained his focus on some object in the distance, and clasped his hands tightly behind his straightened back. Christine stole almost noiselessly behind him, though she could tell by the additional tensing of his shoulders that he knew she approached. She put a steady hand on his arm to turn him towards her. Stiffly, he moved only the slightest, and though his head faced her, his eyes refused to meet her own.

She felt it then; a deep sadness that exuded from his very being. How lonely he must be, tending to these tortured souls night and day with no one to soothe his own dark thoughts or dissuade him from troubling fancies. They said that of her sometimes. That she had troubling fancies.

Insistent, Christine cupped his face, and searched his frightened eyes. They were not lying to her as his face had done before. She still felt there was something of a farce about his physiognomy—an elaborate, unkind word she'd heard used many a time amongst the faculty at her home, the asylum. But close as he was, and nothing more in focus than his eyes, Christine felt a searing moment of clarity. He was not lying now. His eyes told her truth, and mingled with the intense sadness she felt in sharing the doctor's pain, she felt wondrously free.

"Are you very lonely?" Christine asked without releasing her hold on his face.

Still he did not reply, but the sadness in his eyes told her what she needed to know.

_Make your choice_, the ghost had told her. How was she to choose between her life and her spirit? The voice said she clung to him and did not want a real man; a man who would expect the physical nature of a relationship between a man and a woman. She did not think that could be true. After all, she and Raoul had embraced and kissed on many an occasion. They had not consummated their marriage, but that was not Christine's fault. Was it?

There was only one way to settle such a question. Christine pulled the doctor's head down to meet at her level, and assaulted him with a kiss hungry for answers.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Hello again, everyone! Scotland was glorious! I am now in England, which is also lovely as I remembered, though for a while we couldn't find the page for WiFi access in the cottage we're staying at and I feared I might have to skip an update. Thankfully, my Beta's mother is relentless, and she got me the code! :)

Now what I really wanted to add to this note is a HUGE thank you to all the new reviews! Really, I can't even say how touched I was to read them, though I'm a writer so I must try. :) I was rather queasy and in low spirits when Best Friend Beta KittyPimms got on to show me the influx of new and happy readers, and I nearly burst into tears at the thoughtfulness of some of your reviews. So thank you ever so much! I will respond to you all individually once I get back home and have a proper computer by which to do so properly. But for now, please accept my gratitude for you all, and enjoy the story!


	10. Chapter X

**Chapter X**

He had not resisted. As their lips met and Christine's mantle of restraint fell away, there was an instant change in the usually mild manners of the doctor. He possessed her; pressed her closer with an insistent hand at the small of her back, and seemed to hold her in place by the firm, but gentle way he caressed her neck, and brushed away the renegade tresses to do so. There was no apology in the kiss. Neither wished to stop to draw breath, and Christine began to hunger for more than answers as he returned her frantic show with fevered kisses of his own. When sense came to him at last, he only reluctantly pulled away, breathless from the exchange.

Christine was dizzy and her mind was a flurry of conflicting thoughts all rushing about, like the frenzied actions of the nurses in a panic. She nearly swooned and was surprised to find strength in his arms that supported her.

"Christine," he rasped, emotion overtaking his voice, "Look at me."

She shook her head and moaned. What had she done? Surely, this was a betrayal of the worst kind. The ghost would be so angry! The ghost... she realised the music had stopped. When had the music stopped?

Christine began to thrash and toss her head like a terrorised mare in the de Chagny stables. "You tricked me!" she wailed, "You tricked me with the music, making me think he called me here! But it's just you! It's only _you_!"

"Christine!" he said with more force, shaking her a little by the shoulders. "I said, 'look at me!'"

She could not. Her head hurt. Her heart hurt, as well. It was so heavy, and the music had stopped, and she could not hear the voice, but she had no strength left to call him. She let her forehead fall against his chest, and wept bitterly.

At length, he put his arms around her, and let her have her cry until too exhausted to do otherwise, she allowed him to pick her up and carry her to her room. He set her on the bed with the greatest tenderness, and prepared to softly make a retreat while she slept.

"Wait..." she murmured, and he was at her side again in an instant. Her eyes were puffy and red from her weeping, and she looked altogether distraught. "Might you turn my covers for me?"

"Whatever you wish," he said, and by the hitch in his breath, it was as if he was on the verge of tears as well.

Christine thought how nice it would be if she could believe it. But she did not even know what she wished for, so how could any of her wishes be granted?

He folded the covers back with a precision Christine had only ever seen before in Mme de Chagny ordering the placement of linens. She burrowed within, wondering at the immense delight she felt in having such a simple thing done for her.

Perhaps... perhaps she could be happy with her doctor, after all.

And then, as she pondered it, without prompt or reason, he left a kiss on her furrowed brow before slipping out into the dark corridor.

It was some time she waited in silence before she could manage to call the voice with a feeble whisper.

"Are you here?"

"As I said I would be, whenever you have need." She could not read the emotion in his tone when he said, "You have made your choice, then."

"No!" she cried in sudden distress, the tearful pleas begun anew, "No, Angel! I need you!"

"For what, _elskan_? You have your doctor, now. You will be well! Go to him!"

"I need you, as well! Angel, don't leave me!"

His voice filled her senses as it used to so frequently, before the doctor had pressed his advances and she kissed him willingly in the room with the lamp. She thought at first her ghost meant to sing, to soothe her troubled spirits, but then the word, "_Go_..." invaded her mind; his whispered voice surrounding her, even as it faded. Christine's door was ajar. It slowly creaked open to reveal Dr. Derek standing in the doorway with a lantern.

He had returned. And the voice still spoke. Could it be that it was possible to have them both? The voice and her doctor? Surely, if one was only spectre, and the other flesh, they could reconcile their jealousies in _both _staying by her side.

The voice urged her on. Suddenly, it was no longer with her, but hovering over the doctor; coming _from_ the doctor. Christine sat upright, and wide-eyed with disbelief, slowly let her feet slide to the floor.

He held his hand out to her, the one that did not hold the lantern, and said, "_Elskan_?"

"_No_..." she whispered. No. This was not... where did the voice go? Why was the voice inside the doctor? Something was devastatingly wrong.

"Come, Christine," the ghost's voice in the doctor's body said. "Come to me."

She obeyed with a feeble step forward, and just as her trembling hand was caught up in his, she let the sweet comfort of unconsciousness take her to the void.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I'm so sorry this is abysmally short! I know, one of you was just mentioning how my chapters are _too_ short, and I apologise for giving you one that's short even for my standards! But the thing is, I'm going to be on a cruise for eight days with no internet whatsoever unless I want to pay an inordinate amount of money per minute to use the WiFi. I am not swimming in cash, so rather than leave you all without a word I thought maybe you would like to have one last (early) update before I'm cut off from civilisation for over a week! And since I'm returning home around 11PM on an update day and the next chapter is nowhere near finished, the next one may be a week late. (Posted on the 21st rather than the 14th.) Consider this an attempt to bribe my way into your good graces until then!

Oh, and I've ended this one on the worst possible cliffhanger, haven't I? :P Goodness, that's bad timing! I'm dreadfully sorry! Honest!


End file.
